$350,000 for a drone!?!?! I realize that this is durable and has good RF systems in it, but still that strikes me as a bit pricey for what it is. I mean for a few bucks more they could just buy Predators right?

automous navigation features cost you less than $500 for a fully working system controller including required accelerometers, gyros, GPS, compass and a short range telemetry system (only short range due to low output power). The flight controller doesn't have to be any different on a tiny little RC model all the way up to the the largest aircraft in service. The OSS software doesn't yet support orbiting but I suspect it will soon. The only hardware difference is the servos to drive the control surfaces and power output of the engines.

Oh, and its open source... and it probably does more than anything the UAVs you mention do as far as flight control.

If you want the cheap asian knock off, its less than $200 from hobby king.

UAV controllers are an essentially solved problem, its just refinement at this stage, and the hardware to do the actual flight management is dirty cheap.

Communications are also a solved problem, the hardware is available already and is available to anyone, though it requires a operator license... which doesn't come with the UAV, you have to get it yourself from the FCC.

Optics are a little tricker, but nothing to justify the cost of these systems unless you're ordering optics like used in the U-2 spy plane, which your drone isn't going to be capable of taking advantage of anyway. For anything other than what the NSA wants, a gimble to deal with pan/tilt/stabilization and vibration dampening isn't that expensive either, though gimble and camera are likely to be the most expensive bits if you want high quality but that may just be my misperception as thats the area I know least about. Low end stuff that works as well as anything you've actually seen footage from (i.e. not secret stuff) is less than 5k and it will shoot as good as most movie cameras... from thousands of feet up where you can't hear it at all.

$100k is a ridiculous price. The communications/control system is a freaking PC with a high power transmitter, nothing special.

It isn't just the cost of the base hardware that could theoretically function in that capacity, it's fitting it all together, custom designing and building components where necessary then going through the necessary testing (range, quality, flight control, durability, etc) and refinement processes. You could build Google Glass for $100 too if you don't care about having a horribly clunky, heavy, unreliable device with a cumbersome user experience.

It isn't just the cost of the base hardware that could theoretically function in that capacity, it's fitting it all together, custom designing and building components where necessary then going through the necessary testing (range, quality, flight control, durability, etc) and refinement processes.

You are doing it wrong. Nearly all of what is listed in the feature list can be made from off the shelf components using interoperable (read analogue voltage) signals. Even the flight controllers and RF systems use standard protocols (again typically analogue signalling). If you're blowing money on proprietary crap when off the shelf components already exist and work then you're doing it wrong. You want telemetry? Autonomy? Long range? How about 3D control of gimbals and camera control? Yeah my drone does

No they are doing it right. Their customer has a nearly unlimited budget which needs to be spent and which they prefer to overspend because it gives them a way to expand their budget in the next cycle.

If they want to pay $20,000 for a hammer that is individually serial numbered, and wrapped, then you are an idiot for not stamping serial numbers on each one, bagging them up, and charging them 20k.

automous navigation features cost you less than $500 for a fully working system controller including required accelerometers, gyros, GPS, compass and a short range telemetry system (only short range due to low output power).

Just stop right there and think about it. NOAA and the USG are not hobbyists. Perhaps this platform does leverage open source but they probably need FAA certified equipment so that they can fly above the limits placed on hobbyists. Not to mention the potential liability to the government if they rolled out a $1000 drone and it crashed and killed someone. If they tried to explain that one away then some enterprise would leverage that to say that the USG should have dropped $2M on a predator (whatever its

Show me a model plane that has a 15 km radio range, autonomous GPS navigation, IR and visible light camera on a stabilized mount, designed to be reliable in hazardous environments while being handled by infantrymen, and can stay up for 3.5 hours. Then plan to build less than 30,000 of them. Complex systems and low quantities make these things very expensive. This is very different than a simple toy that takes a tens of thousands of dollars to design and hundreds of thousand are aircraft are made.

Sell them to the government at a 100,000% markup.

You even exaggerate or do you really think you can but an RC aircraft with remotely similar capabilities for $1. (The $350K is for the complete system which includes 3 aircraft plus spares).

... I could convert my fixed wing UAV to nitro and hit an hour of flight time, you can fly it in 'super simple mode' with a playstation controller and a laptop without any previous experience flying (I've tested this with multiple people who knew nothing about it in advance), I can get 4-5km range with off the shelf components and a directional tracking antenna.

GPS, IR and visible light camera on a stabilized mount, and able to be operated and handled by an infantrymen... all check, though I generally car

So you are 1/4 of the capability of the equipment we are talking about. Good for you. The 4-5 km range is much less than 15 and the flight time of an hour is much less that 3.5 hours. You be the one to tell the mother her some was killed because the drone ran out of power.Sure you can do some of the things an expensive drone can to but doing them all is very expensive. Your logic is like comparing a Honda Civic [autorooster.com] with a quarter mile time of 17 seconds to a Bugatti Veyron [autorooster.com] with a quarter mile time of 10 second

How about you show some examples of the products you mention. As far as I can tell you are pulling numbers out of the air.

A gambol is not stabilization. Stabilization is much more difficult.The $100 transceiver could not deal video in high enough rez to be useful. Cost estimate on camera is way low. This camera has to see people at over a mile away and be about the size of your fist. That kind of performance is very expensive. When I mention infantrymen I mean they will be the ones assembling and taking car

Horsecrap on the video. IR video feeds are NOT highdef. Reconnaissance video is not highdef. Images are and they can be delivered in due course. The important part about reconnaissance is that the camera is controllable and has a sufficient zoom ratio. Stabilization is a function of the camera and optics. Gimbals will stabilize the camera against movement from the equipment as well. Yes it is more difficult but not by much and helicopter mounted cameras capable of IR can be had for under $10k, $5k for a che

Protip: look how much an accurate GPS unit it costs, an accurate one is well over a $100. (Think closer to $1000).
What about radar?
This is a wildlife monitoring drone, it's going to need reasonable range and that means good battery life and low power equipment. Add $100+ to all purchases and a reasonable budget for a long life, lightweight battery.
Autonomous navigation and other custom software features (which need to be extensively tested with your possibly unique hardware combination) ass at least $5

Accurate or repeatable? You've never used one of these systems have you? People instinctively think that something automated or something that flies in the air needs to be accurate to 1mm or some garbage like that. It doesn't. From a $20 GPS unit you can hold a perfectly steady location within 1m on a really windy day using a multirotor craft. Using my multirotor or my plane I can take off, fly for however long I want and then land autonomously within 1m of my starting location. Sure that 1m may be a few me

Accurate or repeatable? You've never used one of these systems have you?

And you've never used one of these systems where you need to collect accurate date (such as this one would). It also has to be more durable then your hobby plane, and possibly fly a lot longer whilst carrying heavier equipment to use for wildlife monitoring (HD cameras, backup radios, radar, etc (depending on what exactly it was doing).

Actually I have, and not all data needs to be accurate. Location of plane is fine with an accuracy of several meters. There is ZERO reason that the plane needs to know it's location more accurately unless it needs to weave between obstacles, and when that happens LIDAR is used for navigation instead.

But maybe that's how the cost got so high. Someone like you decided to gold plate every spec without actually thinking which are the important ones. As for hobby plane I know of no hobby plane that comes in the

Yes my cheaparse receiver does frequency hopping. They typically have to in the hobby arena as many people are using the same frequencies in close proximity.

You seem to think drones are more difficult than they really are. Most systems are plug and play. They use simple analogue outputs / digital inputs to communicate with each other. If you can assemble a computer and figure out which USB port to plug a mouse into then you can assemble a drone. Some of the more expensive (read $400 instead of $100) flight

I couldn't help but notice that you keep quoting hobbyist prices for components designed for LOS control and small payload. Try researching some FAA approved control systems and plane assemblies and quote those prices so we can fully appreciate the real costs involved.

You may have noticed that FAA approval regulations depend on size and payload weight, both of which are easily achievable using the same equipment and as such has no additional regulatory requirements. You may also note that the FAA has so far not successfully enforced any regulation on any drone user even in cases of unapproved commercial use. Or you could look at commercial systems which already exist for things like event coverage which have the required payload capacity to handle large HD studio video c

The fact they don't guarantee/insure it by default is the reason most people can afford them in the first place. If they wrapped that into their default price, the price of every package sent would go up.

It also is important for assigning a value to a package. Without a way to establish value that has an associated cost, everyone could just say the value is $1 million and UPS would be stuck with the bill. Even with this I think you still have to have some way of demonstrating the real value - you can't just pay for $1000 insurance on a bag of old confetti.

Isn't "performing the service you accepted money to perform" a pretty basic level of liability? Can I accept a contract to write some C++ code for you, but if you don't buy insurance from me, sometimes I just deliver your code to some other guy instead, and fuck you if you want redress?

Yes, that is true. Except for the insurance part. UPS doesn't really provide "insurance", per se.

Don't be fooled by the optional 'high value' stamp, which allows you to declare a higher value. Rightfully so, it's not "insurance" but just allows you to claim the proper value if it is lost or damaged.

I used to work there a couple decades ago. One of my roles was to process computer claims. Considering that many items can fall from belts and "Fragile" means "Throw me hard, please!" in UPS-ese, I'd make sure to ship any critical items through their desk with a proper declared value.

Not that FedEx is much better. I think at one point they were but if you've seen what goes on behind the scenes it's a wonder that anything gets to its destination in one piece.

Might as well talk about the USPS too. (BTW, UPS is not USPS; some are not aware.) I shipped a display stand once. It was a fairly sturdy unit, cube shaped, of some expensive teak wood with brass corners. It could easily bear my weight (and I am not a slender dude). When the first piece arrived, my aunt asked what it was. "It's a stand," I said.

"How do you put it together?" she said.

Eh?

Apparently they'd shipped a piece of my broken stand with a piece of someone else's broken furniture. The label from my box cut out and taped to this other box. I still don't know what happened to the rest of my display stand, but presumably someone is wondering what the heck happened to the rest of their chair.

Yes, that is true. Except for the insurance part. UPS doesn't really provide "insurance", per se.

Don't be fooled by the optional 'high value' stamp, which allows you to declare a higher value. Rightfully so, it's not "insurance" but just allows you to claim the proper value if it is lost or damaged....

Huh? It man not legally be called insurance, but you have the option of declaring the value of the merchandise being shipped and for $.90 per $100 (current book rate), paying a fee to cover the loss beyond th

Just because the lay definition of declared value sounds like insurance, it isn't. With insurance, if you are at fault the insured item may still be covered. E.g., if you crash your car it will often be covered even if you are at fault. With declared va

By the way, the label on the box may not have been put on by the Feds. From the article;

“I can tell you that it didn’t come from us addressed to him,” he said.

It could have been done by UPS when they damaged the original label beyond recognition and just picked the closest package label to duplicate. I also doubt the presence of the label considering there are no pictures of it. The recipient's statements are very like made to make the Feds look bad.

He posted on Reddit because he was trying to get into contact with NOAA, which is apparently difficult to do (when he contacted them directly, they didn't provide any means for him to get it to them; perhaps not even aware of what he was talking about.)

Furthermore, it was addressed to him, even had his fucking name on it. That makes him well within his rights to open it, especially when he was actually EXPECTING a big package.

Bullshit. The package had contact info that the receiver chose not to thoroughly pursue, and his story related to that doesn't hold water. Reddit is not the proper place to contact NOAA unless you wish to gain the kind of "street cred" that whoring bullshit at Reddit gains you, while calling a few numbers and taking the time to look into ownership is not as "sexy" to a "Redditor".

Bullshit. When I'm expecting a package, and I receive one addressed to me, I never bother to look at who sent it or where it came from, I just fucking open it. I'm pretty sure 99% of everybody else does the same thing. Maybe you're the paranoid type, or perhaps you have more enemies than you can count, but as for me personally? There's no reason for anybody to send me a mail bomb.

On top of that, once you open it, you have to pay return shipping to return it to the sender. I don't know about you, but I would

Good question. Where I work (Air Force), we are directed to use USPS Next Day or Registered when we need that kind of service. And, we have never been disappointed. But, most of our Next Day and Registered is classified, so the *law* says we have to mail it.

A few years back, A UPS guy delivered a very LARGE bottle of oxycodone (I have mail order pharmacy as part of my very nice non-ObamaCare medical as a government employee) to a neighbor... My cost $70, street value $5000.

Only if it was actually sent to him and not just miss delivered by UPS. He says there was a label addressed to him but no pictures of the label. There are for other picture but none of the label. Also the USPS article is about unsolicited merchandise and the NOA is not a merchant. The paper inside also states ownership of the package. So yeah, he will get a visit to get the package back.

They do have to make it very easy for him to return it though. Like him saying 'I'll be there at 1515-1530 to hand it over' and UPS being there at 1515, even if they have to send a supervisor.

I once donated a package to charity after it was delivered to my house with a supremely messed up address and the business didn't want to pick up their phone. 90 days later* when I noticed the package still hanging around I donated it.

UPS is not USPS. And it wasn't sent to him, it was misdelivered. Stop trusting the headlines of/. articles. They're intended to fan flames and not to inform. If a certain cable news network did the same kind of thing they'd be accused of being inept and corrupt. When/. does it, it's just fine.

No he doesn't, that would see him charged with theft. Accidental deliveries don't count as unsolicited gifts, though the responsibility and cost is on the delivery company and/or the sender to arrange for collection and potentially compensation if the collection of said package has any costs for the unintended recipient.

The last time UPS messed up a delivery for me, their automated phone system told me where it was. When I talked to a real person and explained that my package was not delivered, he had the address where it was delivered on the computer, and the address of where it was supposed to go as well. (It was a mile away on a completely different street...I'm assuming his next stop. I just went and got it myself, just asked about a package that wasn't theirs.)

The real question is, if they have the capability to know where it was really delivered, why would they not program the handhelds to make all sorts of noise when the delivery guy screws up?

The real question is, if they have the capability to know where it was really delivered, why would they not program the handhelds to make all sorts of noise when the delivery guy screws up?

I've had both UPS and FedEx actually change the customer-supplied delivery address because they... thought they knew better? The last time, the hand-written FedEx form was still on the outside of the box, but the computer-printed one said something different. They're deliberately delivering things to the wrong place. Why would the handheld scanner complain about that?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you receive something addressed to you that was sent by accident, you are under no obligation to return it and it legally belongs to you. I'm pretty sure this is US Postal Law.

IANAL so anyone more familiar with this, feel free to chime in. But AFAIK the parts now legally belong to the kid.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you receive something addressed to you that was sent by accident, you are under no obligation to return it and it legally belongs to you. I'm pretty sure this is US Postal Law.

IANAL so anyone more familiar with this, feel free to chime in. But AFAIK the parts now legally belong to the kid.

Go ahead and try that with the federal government and see where that gets you! Not to mention the law covers mail that is addressed to you. IT was to prevent people from sending you "gifts" and trying to invoice you for that item later. It wasn't addressed to him. He shouldn't have even opened it to begin with.

Somewhere between $350,000 and $1-2 billion (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/black-budget/ - see the NRO bit) is the government's Give-a-fuck-threshold for assured delivery. SpaceX may have a point.

[–]LoveExists 392 points 3 hours agoNSA Agent: "Sir, we have reports that u/Seventy_Seven may be working with a terrorist cell, what should we do?"NSA Officer: "Send a drone over there, let me know what happens." walks away...NSA Agent: mutters to himself "its not like anyone ever sends them back.."permalinkparent

Years ago, before my time, Columbia House or BMG might mail you some records (equivalent to CDs). Later, they would send you a bill for the goods that arrived un-ordered and un-asked-for. Then, mail fraud law caught up, and those scams went away.

This is not that case, but really, I wonder if those laws are applicable to the delivery of packages to the "wrong" person by UPS in such a case. If so, the mis-delivered or un-asked-for delivery is his/hers to keep — no strings.

For one thing, this isn't USPS. It's UPS. I expect the laws are different for that.

For another, the part apparently wasn't addressed to him. It was misdelivered. If someone else's mail ends up in your mailbox, you don't get to open it and keep whatever's inside. If it's not addressed to you, you're not allowed to open it at all.

Seven of the ten wealthiest members of Congress are Democrats, although reporting on Congress members' net worth is inaccurate by design. There's quite a few of them with a net worth in the negative six figures too.